To Myself I Turned
by Amber VanDrake
Summary: Amber's point of view about why she became bitter, her reasons for hating Canard and Nose Dive, and dealing with Wild Wing's breakup. Rated for Language. Please Read and Review!


To Myself I Turned  
  
I always hate my bitter resentment for everything about myself. It seems as if I can't ever find one goddamn thing to be proud of anymore. When I was younger and naïve, I used to brag about being a VanDrake, one of Puckworld's top lines of equestrians, and people would comment about my silver eyes which were their trademark.  
  
But my eyes aren't silver anymore.  
  
When the Saurian Wars began, I joined my older half-sister, Mara, in a strike force team known as the Resistance. Mara's cousin, Canard, was one of the heads of the operation and he led us into the depths of a warehouse. Our mission was to smuggle food and supplies to give to the citizens, but we failed. Half-way into the warehouse, we ran into the Saurians. I was separated from Mara and was cornered into a room when I saw Canard. I screamed for help, but he went the other way. Armed with a saber that I didn't know how to use, I tried to defend myself but a Saurian sliced his saber through the air and through my right wrist completely slicing off my hand. Screaming in pain, I fell to the ground and knocked a bucket with chemicals over and into my eyes.  
  
It was a miracle that Mara was able to get to me and hold strong as she rescued me. A doctor at the Smuggler's Guild was able to re-create a metallic hand with synthetic feathers over it that was virtually flawless: it looked, moved, and felt real but the pain was still there. Phantom pain was what the guy called it.  
  
However, I didn't focus so much on my hands as my other problem. The chemical blinded me. I struggled for nearly a month in blackness, wimpering and crying each night and wishing I could have savored my last sunrise. I had nearly given up hope of ever seeing the light of day again when slowly my vision started to come to. In three more weeks, I was able to see nearly as well as I did before I had the chemical spill, but my eyes changed color. Instead of a beautiful, sparkly silver they were an ugly, pale yellow. My eyes looked like a doll's: cold as death.  
  
Maybe the change in my eyes marked the beginning of the change in me. My constant smile turned into a permanent scowl. I began to loathe Canard with a passion for doing this to me, for betraying me, and I began to resent Mara for always coming to my aid because I was inadequate. I wouldn't spend time with anyone and soon found that I was my only companion.  
  
Two years before, I was in the glory of my hayday. I was dating and engaged to Jake DeCharmante, one of the world's most aspiring thieves. He was apprenticed to Duke L'Orange, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Blade and the Black Rose Society's biggest threat. I don't know why Mara allowed me to see him since she was the Lady Smuggler (the head of the BRS and the Brotherhood's only arch enemy) but she did and I latched onto him like we were attached at the hip. I thought I would live the rest of my life with him and that he would eventually be able to give up his drug addictions, but fate turned on me.  
  
Jake disappeared.  
  
And then my world was shattered.  
  
I've never known the pain of heartbreak or loss before, and I never knew the pain of not knowing the reason why. Many drug addicts take off from time to time, but Jake's loyalty turned to the Brotherhood once he joined and Duke who he viewed as a father. It was too hard to think of why he would take off, and hard to think that he might be dead. I quit my job as a waitress at Chase's Place that day and stayed as far away from the Brotherhood as possible. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I joined the Resistance in the first place-to see if I could rescue people the way I wish I could have rescued Jake.  
  
So I'm bitter and cruel after these hardships and it only got worse. Our peaceful planet, Puckworld, came under attack by a group of lizard-like beings known as the Saurian Overlords. It was legend that thousands of years before, the Saurian Overlords attacked and were defeated and destroyed by a duck known as Drake DuCaine. The Saurians were banished to Dimensional Limbo, a hell prison where one is stuck alone in a barren land waiting for their fate. Just waiting.  
  
However, the myth turned out to be real as the last of the great Saurian Overlords, Dragaunous, launched into battle and the second Saurian War began.  
  
Our part in the Resistance was to be backup when the Saurians were on the run. We trailed behind Canard's craft, the Aerowing, in our small Skybird 2416, however Dragaunous opened up a portal. As we flew through, the end started closing and I pulled the craft to the side. We were pulled out of the tunnel, but according to our co-ordinates we were ages away from our target. We ended up traveling for a year. Cramped up in confinement and detaching myself from Mara, I curled up like a shrimp and refused to break out of my shell for anyone.  
  
Solitude can bring the worst out of anyone, even the most stoic which I definitely was not. There were so many times that I wanted just to give up but an invariable force kept me going through all the tough times. The invariable force was probably the glint of hope that Jake would come back and things would go back to normal; the dream that I could become young and naïve again.  
  
If only that was the case. If only I could live each day for each moment instead of lament and feel sorry for myself in solitude. And if only I could control the fury that I've begun to unleash. I never saw myself as an angry person before but sure enough it breeds from abuse and mistrust.  
  
And hurt.  
  
I never believed that heartbreak could affect me as much as it did but as we found ourselves joining the Resistance and ending up on Earth, I completely jeopardized my entire relationship with the team, especially a drake named Nose Dive who happened to look uncannily identical to my dearly beloved, Jake. Thinking back to the way I treated him, abused him, I'm sure that I was only trying mend my broken heart by using him as a scapegoat to unleash my rage against Jake for disappearing, leaving me alone in the dark.  
  
However, Nose Dive's anger redirected back at me, rightfully so, only fueled me up more. In my sick mind, although his words hurt me they seemed to bring a comfort... the same kind of comfort that I'd get after Jake would yell at me and acknowledge my existence. So I press on and he despises me probably more than Dragaunous himself. I'm sure he would welcome my demise. .  
  
I hate the way he's always right. I hate how talented he is at hockey. I hate how he has a comeback for every statement. I hate how sexy he looks when he comes in from working out with messy hair and glistening sweat on his back.  
  
Yeah, so I'm a shitty liar. He's so perfect and yet I barricade myself from him. Maybe there was hope of us being friends somewhere along the lines but I destroyed every small chance that we had. Plus, why should he bother talking with me since I'm dating.  
  
A short while after I came to Earth, his older brother and team captain of the Mighty Ducks, Wild Wing, asked me out. I always admired Wild Wing because he lacked confidence like me, yet was able to lead a team and never steer them wrong. He was 6'1" so I often had to wear heels and stand on my tip-toes to even come up to his shoulder, but his height was like a safety blanket. I could depend on it among other things, and I felt that dating him would temporarily distract me from Jake... ease my pain.  
  
I had fun with Wing while it lasted. I honestly couldn't see his unhappiness in my sheer oblivion. his unhappiness out of his everlasting love toward his feisty, second-in-command, Mallory. We were always tense from the beginning, probably ultra-competitive with each other and still I don't get how someone could be such a tomboy and priss all combined in one but I'm sure she wonders how someone as ugly as me could get with the guy of her dreams.  
  
I kinda thought Wing liked me for me, but maybe not. Maybe it was a diversion from Mallory or maybe it was the sex.  
  
Fucking mind blowing sex.  
  
I never had foreplay before. The most Jake did for me was feel me up a few times and would leave me to pleasure him in any way. I mean, I loved him so I didn't mind, but I never knew the other pleasures of sex. Once I started with Wild Wing, I couldn't get enough. I felt like I was begging for it mostly because it gave me such a new feeling, a tingly feeling that I couldn't get enough of.  
  
Maybe that's why it hurt so badly when he dumped me because I felt like piece of me was being torn apart and I'd lose the complete intimacy. To deal with it, I locked myself in my room for a week without eating, without crying, just thinking of forgiveness. Any way I could be forgiven for being so cruel to stray from Jake even while wearing his chain around my neck. The chain that bounds me to him and him alone, and the one that bounds me to my nights without tears and days without smiles.  
  
That's where I'm left writing this. In my room. Since jeopardizing my entire life of ever having a friendship or acquaintance I have nothing to do but sit here alone or play hockey. Anaheim was always a dull city for me and I saw no reason to wander its happy-go-lolly streets. I began to even wish for Dragaunous to attack in hopes of finally being annihilated or defeating him in hopes of returning home. But, on second thought, why would I want to go back to the cold, barren place with so many memories? I'd still have no friends, just a stronger urge to find Jake... but for all that matters he could be on Tralus or several other neighboring planets. I decided not to rest until I found him and he was lying safe in arms, but that small task seems impossible.  
  
I wouldn't find him.  
  
I had no where to go.  
  
To myself I turned. 


End file.
